Viva Biotech Announces Its 2025 Interim Results: CRO Revenue Returned to Positive Growth, New CDMO Commercialization Projects Showed Promising Growth

Results Highlights for Interim Results ended 30 June 2025

Revenue reached RMB831.9 million

Gross profit amounted to RMB339.4 million

Gross profit margin was 40.8%, an increase of 6.3 percentage point

Net profit amounted to RMB148.6 million, increased by 3.1% YoY

Adjusted non-IFRS net profit reached RMB183.5 million, increased by 9.1% YoY

SHANGHAI, Aug. 28, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- On August 28, 2025, Viva Biotech Holdings Group ("Viva Biotech", "the Group" or "the Company", stock code: 1873.HK) announced that the Group's revenue amounted to RMB831.9 million, and the Group's gross profit of RMB339.4 million. The Group's gross profit margin was 40.8%, an increase of 6.3 percentage points from the corresponding period of last year, primarily attributable to the optimization and adjustment of Langhua's business structure, improved operational efficiency in CRO business, and contributions from new business segments. In the first half of 2025, the Group's net profit amounted to RMB148.6 million, representing a year-over-year increase of 3.1% compared to the net profit of RMB144.2 million for the corresponding period of last year; adjusted non-IFRS net profit improved from RMB168.2 million for the corresponding period of last year to an adjusted non-IFRS net profit of RMB183.5 million, representing a year-on-year increase of nearly 9.1%. This was mainly driven by the positive growth in both revenue from CRO business and adjusted non-IFRS net profit, as well as enhanced profitability resulting from the optimization of Langhua's business structure.

CRO Revenue Returned to Positive Growth, with a Significant Recovery in Domestic Growth

In the first half of 2025, the Company's revenue from CRO business increased by approximately 9.6% from RMB385.9 million for the corresponding period of last year to RMB422.8 million, and the adjusted gross profit from such business increased by approximately 16.4% from RMB167.2 million for the corresponding period of last year to RMB194.6 million. The growth in CRO revenue during the first half of 2025 was primarily attributable to the recovery in global biopharmaceutical investment and financing in 2024, which boosted overseas business, as well as the surge in domestic innovative drug BD transactions this year, which significantly drove revenue in China. Although global investment and financing experienced a temporary minor fluctuation starting in the second quarter of 2025, the CRO business has accumulated a relatively robust order backlog, coupled with expectations of future Fed rate cuts and the strong recovery of CRO revenue in China. These factors are expected to sustain the full-year growth rate above current levels. Meanwhile, the Company has maintained high profitability in its CRO business through a series of effective measures aimed at improving operational efficiency.

The cumulative number of CRO clients increased to 1,669, including all of the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies (based on total revenue in the 2025 interim report), with revenue from the top 10 clients accounting for 25.9%. The CRO business maintains a diversified client base geographically, with overseas revenue contributing approximately 85.0%, and recording a year-over-year increase of 4.9%, while revenue from mainland China clients accounted for approximately 15.0%.

As at June 30, 2025, the Company has cumulatively delivered more than 90,739 protein structures to our clients, approximately 8,023 of which were newly delivered in the first half of 2025. Our R&D has accumulated over 2,187 independent drug targets, 89 of which were newly delivered in the first half of 2025. Additionally, the utilization of synchrotron radiation source reached 834 hours. The Company established long-term cooperation with 13 synchrotron radiation source centers around the world, which are distributed in ten countries/regions, i.e., Shanghai, China, the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Switzerland and Taiwan, China, thus guaranteeing uninterrupted data collection all year round. Currently, the Company remains the global industry leader in protein structure determination. Moreover, during the Reporting Period, new modalities (including peptides, antibodies, XDCs, PROTACs/molecular glues, etc.) accounted for approximately 15.0% of CRO revenue, growing nearly 19.0% year-on-year. This indicates that new modalities are gradually becoming a new growth driver for CRO revenue.

For market promotion and business development, on one hand, the Company leverages the synergistic development of biology and chemistry to secure integrated full-service project orders. On the other hand, it continues to strengthen the integration of online digital marketing and offline BD efforts to further expand and deepen its international collaboration network. Additionally, the Company recognizes the critical role of AI in drug discovery. The improved efficiency and success rates through a combined dry/wet experiment approach, it drives continuous growth in the number and scale of new projects. As of June 30, 2025, AIDD has been applied in 175 projects, with 67 clients purchasing CADD/AIDD. AI-enabled projects have contributed to nearly 10.0% of the total revenue of CRO business, and the Company has reached well-known collaboration cases on packaged AI discovery solutions in certain niche segments, along with strategic partnerships with domestic pharmaceutical companies.

For technology platform development and expansion, through years of accumulation and development, Viva's AI technology is now empowering its entire drug discovery platform. Its current AI capabilities cover the full workflow of FIC drug discovery, gradually transforming the logic of drug discovery through end-to-end capability integration. Focusing on New Target, Novel MOA and New Modality, Viva has developed unique AI capabilities, advancing its one-stop innovative drug R&D service platform from "AI-assisted" to "AI-driven" development. Furthermore, in May 2025, the Group successfully held the "Enchantment of Drug Discovery" launch event, where it unveiled its self-developed AIDD platform for the first time. The event provided in-depth insights into the platform's unique advantages, its disruptive innovation to traditional drug discovery workflows, and its three core functional modules of V-Scepter, V-Orb and V-Mantle. Through case demonstrations, the Company further showcased the platform's boundless potential in real-world applications.

New CDMO Commercialization Projects Showed Promise with Significant Profitability Improvement in CMC Business

The Group is committed to building a one-stop service platform for global innovative drugs from research and development to production, and improved the production layout through acquisition of the entire equity interests in Zhejiang Langhua Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. ("Langhua Pharmaceutical"). During the Reporting Period, active preparations were made for the implementation of new CDMO commercialization projects, with PPQ production already initiated within the Reporting Period. In addition, the Company has achieved significant improvement of profitability of its CMC business.

In the first half of 2025, Langhua Pharmaceutical's revenue amounted to RMB409.0 million, and its adjusted gross profit amounted to RMB155.1 million, the adjusted gross profit margin reached 37.9%, representing a year-on-year increase of 7.9pct. The significant improvement in Langhua Pharmaceutical's adjusted gross profit margin was mainly driven by the optimization of its CDMO business structure and the notable enhancement of profitability in its CMC operations. The periodic fluctuations in revenue was mainly due to the fact that (i) to better meet FDA audit requirements for new commercialization projects, upgrades were made to existing workshops, temporarily affecting revenue from generic drug products during the Reporting Period; (ii) the supply chain business (intermediates and formulations) experienced fluctuations due to geopolitical factors in Southeast Asia, India and Pakistan; and (iii) new CDMO commercialization projects, based on client schedules, are set to commence delivery and generate revenue in the second half of 2025.

As at June 30, 2025, Langhua Pharmaceutical had served a total of 905 clients, with the top ten clients accounting for 68.3% of its total revenue and a 100% retention rate of top ten clients. In addition to revenue contribution from its existing commercialization projects, Langhua Pharmaceutical's CDMO business has two important new commercialization projects currently in the PPQ stage, which are expected to be commercially launched in 2026 and 2027 respectively, providing a new growth driver to its CDMO business in the future. During the Reporting Period, in respect of production capacity, our current available total capacity has reached 860 cubic meters, which is sufficient to support the production needs of new commercialization projects over the next two years. Additionally, Langhua Pharmaceutical is constructing a new production capacity of 400 cubic meters to meet future demand for increased volume of commercial production of new molecules.

In addition, during the Reporting Period, the Group adjusted its CMC business structure, focusing more on synthesis and analysis operations. We continued to strengthen our BD efforts to overseas customers, while leveraging cost efficiency initiatives and customer mix optimizations to improve profitability sustainably. Since its establishment, CMC has completed and is currently progressing with a total of 279 new drug projects, driven by a CMC R&D team of 100 members. During the Reporting Period, the profitability of CMC business has shown significant improvement following adjustments. In addition, the projects channeled by the Group progressed smoothly, and one pipeline has rapidly advanced to Phase III clinical trials, showcasing the success of the Group's integrated strategy. In the future, the Group plans to strengthen BD and channeling efforts for acquiring high-quality CMC projects. By fully utilizing internal project resources and implementing cost reduction and efficiency enhancement measures, the Group aims to boost revenue growth and enhance profitability of its CMC business. During the Reporting Period, in terms of the number of customer orders, external BD accounted for nearly 55.0%, while channeled accounts from Viva represented approximately 45.0%. In terms of order amount, external BD contributed 56.0%, while channeled accounts from Viva contributed 44.0%. Based on these figures, it is evident that both our internal channeling and external BD capabilities have played an important role in growing the CMC business.

Exit of Incubation Portfolio Companies to Realize Partial Investment Returns and Successfully Participation in Establishing and Investing in an RMB-denominated Fund

During the Reporting Period, the Company successfully achieved investment exits from various portfolio companies, realizing corresponding investment returns and generating total proceeds of nearly RMB76.5 million. As at June 30, 2025, the Group had invested in a total of 93 portfolio companies. The portfolio companies are mainly from the United States, Canada, Europe and China. 67.7% of the portfolio companies are from North America and 25.8% are from China.

As at June 30, 2025, 8 of our portfolio companies completed or were close to completing a new round of financing, raising approximately US$293.6 million in total. The R&D efforts of the portfolio companies were advancing smoothly, with the total number of pipeline projects reaching close to 228, of which 186 pipelines are in the preclinical stage and 42 pipelines are in the clinical stage. So far, the Group has successfully realized 18 investment exits or partial exits. Furthermore, Group may have several potential exits of our portfolio companies, which are expected to be gradually realized in the future.

As at the end of the Reporting Period, Viva has successfully invested in a series of high-quality assets, including portfolio companies such as Haya, Mediar, Nerio, Full-Life, Absci, Dogma, Arthrosi, Basking, Cybrexa and FuseBio. In the future, as these portfolio companies continue to develop successfully, secure ongoing financing, and realize exits, the initial investments will gradually enter the harvesting phase, providing sustained cash returns and investment income for the Group.

In addition, on May 28, 2025, Hangzhou Viva Zongchen (a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company) participated as a limited partner in the establishment and investment of an RMB-denominated fund, and is expected to contribute RMB25.0 million. The fund aims to seek investment with a focus on biopharmaceutical businesses to incubate and develop high quality pharmaceutical ventures, and further enable the Company to seek potential strategic partners and create synergies.

Staff and Facilities

As at June 30, 2025, the Group had a total of 2,085 employees, of whom the number of CRO R&D personnel reached 1,098, and the headcount of Langhua Pharmaceutical was 753. The Company has well-established office and laboratory facilities in line with its workforce expansion plans, and is expanding production capacity to meet the fast-growing business needs, including:

The Group's new headquarters in Zhoupu, Shanghai with a total area of approximately 40,000 square meters had been put into full operation.

The incubation center located in Faladi Road, Shanghai has an actual usable area of approximately 7,576 square meters, including 5,552 square meters of laboratory area.

The park in Chengdu has a GFA of approximately 64,564 square meters, of which 12,210 square meters of properties had been put into use as at June 30, 2025, including 10,800 square meters of laboratory area.

A park in Suzhou with a total GFA of approximately 7,545 square meters, including nearly 5,305 square meters of laboratory area.

A park in Jiaxing with a GFA of approximately 6,362 square meters, including nearly 5,335 square meters of laboratory area.

Shanghai Supercomputing Center has been officially put into operation. At present, it can support computer-aided drug discovery (CADD) computation, artificial intelligence drug discovery (AIDD) related computation, and crystal structure and Cryo-EM (Micro-ED) computation.

The factory of Langhua Pharmaceutical in Taizhou, Zhejiang has a GFA of approximately 35,168 square meters, and the Taizhou R&D center with an area of approximately 2,500 square meters. The R&D center and office in Ningbo have an area of approximately 2,800 square meters

Dr. Cheney Mao, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Viva Biotech Holdings, stated, "With unique advantages in structure-based drug R&D (SBDD), the Company will increase the cross-sell between biological and chemical businesses, continue to strengthen the construction of its one-stop innovative novel drug R&D platform and manufacturing service platform, deepen the synergy between CRO and CDMO business, improve the capacity building for front-end services and drive business to back-end services to further enhance the business funnel effect. The Company is committing effort to establish an open eco-system for global biopharma innovators."

About Viva Biotech

Established in 2008, Viva Biotech (01873.HK) provides one-stop services ranging from early-stage Structure-Based Drug R&D to commercial manufacturing to global biopharmaceutical innovators. We offer leading early-stage to late-phase drug discovery expertise by integrating our dedicated team of experts, cutting-edge technology platforms, and state-of-the-art equipment in X-ray crystallization, Cryo-EM, DEL, ASMS, SPR, HDX, AIDD/CADD, and much more. Our business covers all aspects of therapeutic strategies and drug modalities, including small molecules and biologics across the pharma and biotech spectrum. The experienced chemistry team, led by senior medicinal chemists and drug discovery biologists, provides services for drug design, medicinal chemistry (hit to lead and lead optimization), custom synthesis, chemical analysis and purification, kilogram scale-up, peptide synthesis and corresponding bioassays. With our subsidiary, Langhua Pharma, we offer our worldwide pharmaceutical and biotech partners a one-stop integrated CMC (Chemical, Manufacturing, and Control) service from preclinical to commercial manufacturing. Additionally, Viva embedded an equity for service (EFS) model to high potential startups to address unmet medical needs.

As at June 30, 2025, Viva Biotech had cumulatively provided drug R&D and manufacturing services to 2,574 biotech and pharmaceutical clients around the world. We have invested and incubated 93 biotech start-ups in total. In the future, the company will continue to strengthen its technological barriers and improve R&D, production levels, and our service capacity to provide high-quality and diversified services for more drug discovery start-ups, as well as medium and large pharmaceutical enterprises around the world.

SOURCE Viva Biotech